Learned lovers

While Britain was agog over the infidelity of foreign secretary Robin Cook, New York has been excited by the far more contested private life of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. As with the Cook affair (Antithesis, August 8) the academic background of alumni to be proud of nos 125 to 128 shows that an expensive higher education is an essential qualification for matters of this sort. Hizzoner's degree came from the private Manhattan College, New York. His wife, Donna Hanover, took a first degree in political science at Stanford before a masters at the Columbia School of Journalism.

And his press secretary Christyne Lategano, alleged by Vanity Fair magazine to have been conducting an affair with Giuliani - he denies it - attended that highly interesting institution Rutgers University, New Jersey, which manages for historic sporting reasons to be both a state university and a member of the Ivy League. It also has a member of staff called Professor Lapping. A doubtless interested spectator was the first Mrs Giuliani, Regina Perrugi, president of Marymount Manhattan College.